GENEVA: A United Nations inquiry mentioned it discovered that Israel carried out a concerted coverage of destroying Gaza’s healthcare system within the Gaza warfare, actions amounting to each warfare crimes and the crime in opposition to humanity of extermination.
A press release on Thursday (Oct 10) by former UN Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay that accompanied the report accused Israel of “relentless and deliberate assaults on medical personnel and services” within the warfare, triggered by Hamas militants’ lethal cross-border assault on southern Israel on Oct 7, 2023.
“Youngsters specifically have borne the brunt of those assaults, struggling each instantly and not directly from the collapse of the well being system,” mentioned Pillay, whose 24-page report masking the primary 10 months of the warfare will likely be offered to the UN Common Meeting on Oct 30.
Israel’s diplomatic mission in Geneva rejected the report’s findings, calling them outrageous.
“(The report) is one other blatant try by the CoI to delegitimise the very existence of the State of Israel and impede its proper to guard its inhabitants,” it mentioned, referring to the Fee of Inquiry.
Israel says Gaza’s militants function from the duvet of built-up populated areas together with faculties and hospitals and that it’ll strike them wherever they emerge, whereas additionally making an attempt to keep away from harming civilians. Hamas denies hiding militants, weapons and command posts amongst civilians.
The UN inquiry’s assertion additionally accused Israeli forces of intentionally killing and torturing medical personnel, concentrating on medical automobiles and proscribing permits for sufferers to depart the besieged Gaza Strip.
It cited the dying of a Palestinian woman, Hind Rajab, in February together with members of the family and two medics who got here to rescue her from beneath Israeli hearth as they evacuated. The report mentioned the ambulance was hit by a tank shell whereas inside 50m of the household regardless of its route having been coordinated prematurely with Israeli safety forces.
